Public Safety Committee on Dec. 12th, 2024

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

That's good. That's a very important point to get across. I think we have to remind Canadians of that. I'll put this diplomatically: Sometimes fact-checkers have a very tough job with the incoming president. There's evidence. In every single one of his interviews, you can point to stuff that is factually not correct. I think the challenge for us is separating the rhetoric from the reality.

All of you have talked about the excellent relationship you have with your U.S. counterparts. I believe that to be true. You've told us that we have this great working relationship.

If there are, objectively, areas with room for improvement, can each of your agencies tell us policy-makers which areas we should be looking to for improvement, in order to provide you with the resources to do your job?

[Erin O'Gorman]

From a border perspective, it's challenging, in that drugs are moving around the world all the time. What we're grappling with, alongside our B5 partners at the World Customs Organization, are small packages. As we've seen, a handful of fentanyl pills through the mail can become many doses out on the street and lives lost. We are working very closely with our partners. We recently talked to courier companies that don't want to be shippers of lethal drugs themselves, and don't want a pile of new reporting rules put on them. We all recognize that balance is needed between the supply chain and stopping drugs from coming in small packages.

That's an area we're focusing on and getting at through intelligence and targeting. At any one time, it's risk-based—looking at what's coming in and what's going out, but also grappling with the significant post-COVID increase in small parcels that are transiting the world at any one time.

[Commr Michael Duheme]

Mr. Chair, I would add this. I mentioned the regulations around precursors. I think that there is something to be done there. We could examine, for import businesses, what the regulations are for the precursors coming in and tighten them. We've seen, on occasion, illegal precursors that we could not do anything about staying in a warehouse for a number of days before they would ship—so that would be a sign. However, again, if they're legal, there is nothing much we can do.

Is there any way we can tighten the regulations and reverse the onus on the person importing the material?

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Quickly, I suppose we can keep running into the precursor problem because now they're starting to import precursors to the precursors. Is that right? Criminal organizations are always going to react to our latest tactics and evolve, so this is the challenge.

Would you agree?

Yes.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Raquel Dancho]

Thank you very much to both of you.

Now we'll start over again with the Conservatives and Mr. Lloyd.

You have five minutes. Please go ahead.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Thank you, all, for being here.

We've long had an issue with contraband tobacco in this country.

Wouldn't you agree? Is contraband tobacco a significant issue that CBSA and the RCMP deal with?

[Commr Michael Duheme]

I would agree that it's still an issue.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Do you see an overlap between organized crime in the contraband tobacco trade and in the fentanyl trade? Is there a strong connection there, or no connection at all?

[Commr Michael Duheme]

I am not aware of any connection.

However, what I will say is that, when organized crime is involved, if there is a way to move commodities, a substance or anything, they will use the routes that are already pre-established.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

What you're saying is that you don't have evidence before you today to say that the groups doing these are the same, but they're using the same supply chain networks to move their product over the border.

[Commr Michael Duheme]

That's a possibility.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Would you say that, if we were to aggressively crack down on contraband tobacco, we would also see benefits in terms of breaking up the supply chain for fentanyl, other drugs, smuggled guns and human smuggling, for example, across the border? Do you think there is that potential?

[Commr Michael Duheme]

It could have an immediate impact. However, as someone mentioned earlier, organized crime will adjust based on legislation and how we operate.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Of course, I know funding is always an issue. We're in tight economic times.

Do the Canadian and provincial governments lose a significant amount of money on contraband tobacco every year?

[Commr Michael Duheme]

I don't have the exact numbers, but one can assume that they're losing money.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

If we were to crack down on that, perhaps we could get the revenues and the funding needed to crack down on the fentanyl and drug trades.

Do you have any evidence of how organized crime is using the profits it gets from contraband tobacco? What are those profits being reinvested into?

[Commr Michael Duheme]

It's the way of life. It's how they make the money. They get richer by bringing in contraband, illicit substances or firearms, or by human smuggling, and they just reinvest it.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

The revenues from the contraband tobacco trade are also leading to the drugs trade, the firearms trade and the human trafficking trade. There's a connection.

[Commr Michael Duheme]

As I said, if you look at organized crime, they're involved in anything that can make them some money.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

There is a strong connection.

We just recently finished our long auto study, and we heard time and time again that stolen vehicles in Canada are being exported through our ports and used to finance terrorist organizations around the world. They're being used to finance the purchase of firearms smuggled into our country. This is a very serious issue.

Clearly, our ports are the weak point. Does the CBSA have any recommendations for things we can adopt to strengthen our ports so that we can not only protect Canadians from the drug trade, but give our American and other trading allies and partners assurances that Canada's taking the necessary actions to protect them?

[Erin O'Gorman]

From the CBSA perspective, we work extremely collaboratively with our port authorities. You mentioned stolen vehicles. The port of Montreal, in particular, where we've seen the highest volume, has been an excellent partner and has been taking its own initiative on how it can further stop the contraband coming into its ports.

The more containers we look at, the more slowly things go—

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

What about the precursor chemicals that are coming from China through the port of Vancouver, I would assume, given that it seems to make more sense logistically?

What are we doing to intercept those shipments coming into Canada? How can we strengthen our ports to block them?

[Erin O'Gorman]

I don't want to speak on behalf of the ports. The work we do in inspecting and interdicting precursors and other contraband coming in through the ports is done through a combination of intelligence, targeting information from allies and information that we have received through the many information-sharing and collaborative arrangements we have with our policing partners.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Do you have any recommendations on how we can strengthen that today? Is there a plan?

The president-elect of the United States says he's going to put a 25% tariff on us. Do we have a plan to show that we're taking action on this, or are we currently just working on the plan?

[Erin O'Gorman]

I'll defer to the minister's remarks yesterday about the plan that was consulted on with the provinces. He has indicated, as has the Prime Minister, that they will talk to the Americans.